NTP patents before the Blackberry's time has the company seeking to have Research in Motion stopped in its tracks

These days it's pretty rare to see people moving around without cell
phones; it's just too difficult to survive without one it seems.
Regardless of whether you have a cell phone or not, we're
positive that there have been times where one would have made the day a
whole lot better.

In the business world, communication is key and having the ability to
communicate with partners and customers alike can make a huge
difference between having a customer or losing to the competition. In
the fast paced business world however, a cell phone just isn't enough.
Thus we have the Blackberry -- Research in Motion's (RIM) wildly
popular mobile text communicator. Sure it's a bit bigger than your
typical cell phone, but it connects people who are on the go with their
emails, office information, co-workers, and most importantly customers.

Imagine that business folks everywhere were using Blackberry devices --
which they are. But also imagine that the devices have become so well
integrated into the lives of these business people that productivity
has never been the same and the ease of staying in touch is so
invaluable to them that RIM's devices have become the de facto standard
in mobile business communications. Now imagine that RIM announced
that's going to suddenly close its doors and cease all partnerships
with cellular network providers.

This is something that could very well happen if Donald Stout and
Thomas Campana Jr. have their way. In fact, Thomas Campana holds a list
of patents that architect how to get computers and mobile devices to
seamlessly communicate with each other using text messaging. Not only
this, Mr. Stout's company, NTP Inc. has a legion of lawyers now on its
side and are suing RIM. So far, NTP is winning.

Thomas Campana passed away in 2004 but still today the battle between
NTP and RIM rages on even more so. NTP is claiming that it has had the
patents for years prior to the introduction of the BlackBerry, and this
is of course true. In RIM's defense, it claims that NTP and Mr. Stout
are typical patent "trolls" who don't make use of inventions and
instead incubate them in hopes that someone or some company will
re-invite the same thing so that there will be a big potential for a
lawsuit that would be worth a fortune -- not to mention the ultimate
demise of the successful company.

Many people are now holding their breaths in the wait to see the
outcome of this court-room debacle. Analysts are saying that the
communications lawsuit between NTP and RIM is one of the biggest, if
not the biggest in recent US history. Currently, NTP has already filed
for an injunction to prevent RIM from further shipping its Blackberry
devices. NTP is also hoping to either seek a large amount of ongoing
royalties for the Blackberry which would no doubt increase their
prices. Currently, RIM is facing damages in the hundreds of millions of
dollars and this is only cash value. If NTP comes out on top, RIM, its
employees, partners, developers and most importantly its customers
everywhere will be looking at one big communications black-out.

"Can anyone tell me what MobileMe is supposed to do?... So why the f*** doesn't it do that?" -- Steve Jobs